Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Film director acquitted of rape buys into "rape culture"

Film director Nate Parker, who is black, was a 19-year-old wrestler at Penn State in August 1999 he was accused of raping a white woman. Parker admitted to having sex with the woman but claimed it was consensual. The accuser was inebriated prior to the the alleged assault but a witness said she was coherent. The accuser tried to tried to trap Mr. Parker into confessing that he raped an unconscious woman in a recorded telephone confession (Mr. Parker didn't know it was being recorded). Here's what Mr. Parker said: “You were all for it, you know what I mean,” he said. “It’d, it’d be different if you were just laying there, but you weren’t. You were active, you know what I mean?” And: ". . . if . . . you’re giving me the vibe that you’re cool with it… I’m going to assume you’re fine. You know? I’m going to assume that nothing’s wrong. And that’s what I did.” After the accusation, Mr. Parker said a detective working on the case threatened him, “You wrestlers for the past 10 years have raped and battered this whole town. I’m going to get you.” Prosecutors brought charges.

In an October 2001 trial. Mr. Parker was acquitted on all charges by a jury in central Pennsylvania that was all white one except for one black juror.

Now that Mr. Parker is a prominent film director, he's found himself in the cross hairs of the sexual grievance cartel. Because he was accused of rape, they think it's a foregone conclusion that he's a rapist, acquittal be damned.

Cathy Young, for one, has stood up for Parker and decried the PC lynch mob that makes him a scapegoat.

So how does Parker himself react? Does he talk about the fact that it's unjust to assume guilt based on an accusation? Does he talk about the necessity for judging every case on its own facts? Does he talk about the critical importance of due process?

He does not. He reacts by admitting his male "privilege" and the destructive effect" that "male culture" has on our culture. He wants to "grow" from the rape criticisms being lodged against him. His interview is replete with the extremist language of "rape culture," which is both ironic and troubling because "rape culture" is the very attitude that says it's not just acceptable but, indeed, proper to assume he's a rapist based on the accusation made against him. "Rape culture" promotes the belief that to concede even the possibility that there might be another side to a "he said-she said" rape claim is misogyny and rape apology.

It doesn't matter to Mr. Parker that RAINN, itself, thinks "rape culture" is an unjust concept. "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime," according to RAINN. The "unfortunate" tendency to blame "rape culture" for sexual assault, RAINN wrote, "has led to an inclination to focus on . . . traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., 'masculinity'), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape."

Nate Parker has decided that he'd rather keep his PC credentials intact than speak out against the injustice of rushing to judgment and assuming guilt in rape cases, and that means kowtowing to the gender extremists who dominate the public discourse on all things related to sexual assault.

Because Nate Parker was a black man who was accused by a white woman, his attitude is particularly repulsive.

Nate Parker might have been wrongly accused, but he is no friend to the wrongly accused.